Caernarfon Castle

Stand still for a moment and listen. Gulls call over the water. Wind comes off the Menai Strait and pushes against the walls. Under your hand the stone feels cold and slightly rough, and it is laid in bands of colour, pale and darker grey, one stripe above another. This castle was built to make a statement, and more than seven centuries later it still makes it. You are at the mouth of the River Seiont, where it meets the strait, on the north-western edge of Wales.

If you came over from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, the village with the very long name, you crossed from the island of Anglesey onto the mainland. The castle is not in that village. It stands in the town of Caernarfon, a short drive south-west along the strait. That stretch of water matters to this story. Anglesey was the grain store of medieval Gwynedd, the northern Welsh kingdom. Whoever held this shore could watch the island and control the sea route.

The story begins in 1283. King Edward the First of England had just defeated the last native princes of Gwynedd. To hold the country, he built a ring of new castles across the north. Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris on Anglesey belong to the same project. Caernarfon was meant to be the grandest of them all. It was planned as a royal palace and a seat of government, not only as a fortress for soldiers.

The man most closely linked with these castles is Master James of Saint George. He was a master mason from Savoy, a region in the Alps between modern France and Italy. Edward brought him to Wales to direct the work. Thousands of labourers, carpenters, and quarrymen were gathered from across England for the building campaign. Think about the scale. This was one of the largest construction projects in medieval Europe, and it ran on muscle, rope, and timber.

Now look again at those towers. Most castles of this period had round towers. Here they are polygonal, with many flat faces and sharp angles. And there are those horizontal bands in the stone. Many historians have argued that Edward wanted to copy the walls of Constantinople, the ancient imperial capital that is now Istanbul. Constantinople also had banded walls and angular towers. Not every scholar accepts this idea today. But if it is true, the message was clear: this is a new imperial power.

There was an even older empire here first. Up the hill, on the edge of the town, are the remains of Segontium, a Roman fort. In Welsh tradition, the Roman emperor Magnus Maximus is remembered as Macsen Wledig. A medieval Welsh tale tells how he dreamed of a beautiful maiden in a castle at the mouth of a river. Legend links that dream to this place. Edward seems to have known these stories. He used them to give his conquest an ancient and royal pedigree.

In 1284, while the castle was still a building site, Edward's wife Queen Eleanor gave birth to a son here. That child became King Edward the Second. A popular tale says that Edward presented the baby to the Welsh as a prince born in Wales who spoke no English. It is a good story, but historians treat it as legend. The baby was not made Prince of Wales until years later, in 1301.

The castle was never truly finished. In 1294 a Welsh rising led by Madog ap Llywelyn swept through the town. The rebels burned the town and damaged the half-built castle walls. Work began again with new urgency. It went on for decades and then slowly stopped around the 1330s. Look closely and you can still find gaps where planned rooms were never built. Some walls show sockets for beams that were never fitted.

Turn towards the tallest tower, at the western end. This is the Eagle Tower, the most elaborate part of the castle. Three turrets rise from its top. Stone eagles once stood on them, and you can still see weathered shapes up there today. The eagle was a symbol of Rome. Once more, the builders were using imperial imagery to send a message. The views from the top across the strait and the town reward the climb.

The castle was tested again at the start of the fifteenth century. Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welshman to claim the title Prince of Wales, led a great revolt against English rule. His forces besieged Caernarfon. The small garrison held out behind these walls. That is perhaps the strongest proof that the design worked. A handful of defenders could hold a building like this against a much larger army.

Centuries later, the castle took on a new role, as a stage for ceremony. In 1911, the future King Edward the Eighth was invested as Prince of Wales here. In 1969 it was the turn of Prince Charles, now King Charles the Third. That ceremony was broadcast on television around the world. In the open ground of the upper ward you can find a round platform of Welsh slate. It was laid down for the 1969 investiture.

Those events still divide opinion. For some people the castle stands for royal tradition. For many Welsh people it is a reminder of conquest. Both views are part of this place. In 1986, Caernarfon was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, together with the other castles and town walls of Edward in Gwynedd. Inside, one of the towers also holds the museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a Welsh regiment with a long history.

Before you leave, walk back towards the King's Gate, the main entrance facing the town. Look up above the archway. There is a statue in a niche, usually identified as Edward the Second. Below it are the slots where the portcullises once dropped. Then step outside and follow the town walls a little way. They still wrap around the old streets, much as they did seven hundred years ago. Listen for the gulls again... and feel the wind off the water. It is the same wind the builders felt.